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Alcohol & Drugs

All the latest news: Policy Practice Innovation Treatment Drug Use Trends

Here you can find over 500 posts tracking every major development in the substance misuse sector since 2011. You can keep up with latest treatment stats, funding news, policy developments and treatment innovations. If you’re looking for something in particular, try the search box below.
Alcohol/Drugs/Gambling

A successful approach to tackling drug-related crime

These are outstanding outcomes and demonstrate the importance of a recovery-oriented treatment approach as a long term solution to tackling drug-related crime; interestingly, reconviction rates for RAPt graduates go down further in the second year post-release. Unfortunately, less than 2% of the prison population who currently need this sort of intensive intervention is receiving it. It remains to be seen if Michael Gove, the new Justice Secretary, can improve on that figure.

1st June 2015
Alcohol/Drugs/Gambling

Best practice with treatment resistant drinkers

The core component of the model is an individualised care plan with team members (four nurses and an administrator who also does recovery work) delivering or co-ordinating whatever a service user needs. The account of the team’s work says there is no typical service but lists a range of working methods as described by a number of interviewees:

28th May 2015
Alcohol/Drugs/Gambling

Substance misuse and mental health in prison

Bradley found that mental health and substance misuse services in prisons did not work well together and that this situation did not improve in the five years between his two reports. RAPt’s experience is that only the minority of inmates with acute mental health problems currently receive treatment in prison, with the majority having to cope with their problems in a hostile prison environment without dedicated support.

26th May 2015
Alcohol/Drugs/Gambling

We need a new focus on complex needs

The report recommends investing £216 million over three years which should realise extensive savings since the current annual costs for the 58,000 individuals with substance misuse, criminal justice and homelessness problems is estimated at between £1.1 billion and 2.1 billion per year.

22nd May 2015
Alcohol/Drugs/Gambling

Tackling drug-related crime

Changes in probation and substance misuse commissioning, combined with the very significant cuts to the prison system, have made it much more difficult for drug and/or alcohol dependent offenders to get the treatment which they need to achieve recovery, in which society needs to tackle crime.

18th May 2015

Recorded drug offences down 11%

The ONS report makes it clear that the number of drug offences recorded by the police is heavily dependent on police activities and priorities. Changes in the number of offences are more likely to reflect changes in the policing of drug crime, rather than real changes in the number of drug offences.

15th May 2015
Alcohol/Drugs/Gambling

Reducing smoking in prison

The PHE report summarises our understanding of smoking in prison. On the one hand, limited access to tobacco can reduce how much and how often prisoners smoke as can the cost of tobacco for those surviving on a prison income.

Conversely, smoking is often seen as a coping strategy to manage the stress of imprisonment and helps to alleviate boredom. Not smoking in a culture where a large majority of people smoke can also be socially isolating. And, of course “Burn” remains one of the principal prison currencies.

11th May 2015
Alcohol/Drugs/Gambling

It’s all change in commissioning drug treatment

Many readers will have first hand experience of commissioners seeking to achieve economies of scale by integrating drug and alcohol treatment and moving to one contract for a local area with the aim of delivering a co-ordinated treatment system led by a single provider.

20th April 2015
Alcohol/Drugs/Gambling

RAPt 3 priorities for the new Justice Secretary

How does the new Justice Secretary direct extra resources at interventions that achieve the departmental objective of reducing reoffending, while managing what is likely to be a further 20-30% cut to the departmental budget? A brave leader would use this opportunity to end the madness of the highest prison population in Europe – costing taxpayers over £3 billion per year, a high proportion of which is

10th April 2015
Alcohol/Drugs/Gambling

What’s happening with cocaine?

The ACMD found that “the majority of users consume cocaine powder relatively infrequently and, even among users, there appears to be a reasonable level of awareness that cocaine powder is not a ‘safe’ drug.”

30th March 2015
Alcohol/Drugs/Gambling

Drugs in Prison

Although it is obvious that the main reason that such large quantities of drugs get into prison is to feed the demand of the many dependent drug users inside, it has long been a significant concern that as many as one in five heroin users took the drug for the first time in custody.

27th March 2015
Alcohol/Drugs/Gambling

Is the drug strategy working?

Drugs remains such a politically sensitive issue that an honest review which highlights successes and failures with the same prominence seems very unlikely, irrespective of which political parties are in power. Until we can have an open and honest debate about drugs in this country, it will be difficult for us to have a truly effective drug strategy.

12th March 2015

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